


Sifting Chaos

by nonky



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: F/M, season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 21:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8638069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonky/pseuds/nonky
Summary: Kurt Weller asked even more impossible questions than his agents, some of them utterly silent and mostly hidden in little looks she couldn't decode. Jane knew she was supposed to have all her basic knowledge intact, but she fumbled with responses.





	

She fell into the dream with the certainty it was too crisply detailed for her subconscious. It might have had a neat printed subtitle telling her she wasn't in the real world. She was lost in her own head, feeling lost memories like scars she couldn't explain. Everything mixed nauseatingly, tricks her own mind played.

It was the FBI interview room, stark and harshly lit. Jane recognized it, though it had the tint of otherness dreams often gave to familiar spaces. It felt bigger than it should, and the clean blankness was threatening. She pictured blood splattered on those white walls, and hated how morbid she'd become. Then she was forced to question - always question - if it was a change in her personality or a remnant of her past self.

She was on the bad side of the table, the side they put suspects. Her hands were free but she was holding them so stiffly they were useless. The chair was uncomfortable. Jane had the sense she could stand, but wasn't allowed. She was waiting. 

The feeling of observation slithered on her, a full-body unease. She wasn't injured and she didn't feel anything except confusion. It made a prickle on the nape seem friendly, roaming over her tattoos and making tallies with an unknown purpose. 

Jane squirmed in the seat, grimacing. She thought about calling out to someone, but wasn't sure who she wanted to see in those circumstances. Did she want Mayfair's distanced caution? Would Patterson's kindness soothe her? Could she withstand the impossible questions Reade and Zapata would ask? Why would Weller let anyone put her back here?

Kurt Weller asked even more impossible questions than his agents, some of them utterly silent and mostly hidden in little looks she couldn't decode. Jane knew she was supposed to have all her basic knowledge intact, but she fumbled with responses. She didn't know how to be the cause of his joy when he forgot to pretend he was neutral. Knowing she was needy for human contact made her wary of accepting it. She sometimes thought she could read him and other times didn't trust her social skills.

Her hand went to the edge of the table, suddenly, as if it hadn't been her own idea. Her fingers brushed something and she looked closer. 

Objects were lined off in a neat display, inviting her to worry over a meaning. They were mundane and terrifying. There was a handgun like the ones the agents used. A long strip of white fabric that looked very soft next to a firearm. A green apple lay next to a pocketknife folded to show the blade. A large gold coin looked like real currency, but it wasn't from the U.S. A glass marble swirled with green and blue sat next to a pair of regulation handcuffs. 

Jane blinked and Kurt was sitting across from her when she looked again. He was rumpled like at the end of a long day. His face was set like a mask, giving her not one clue what to expect. 

"You can do whatever you want to me," she said, shocked by the certainty in the words. She hadn't intended to speak. The dream was rolling her on this course without her effort. 

"We have to know where these things go, Jane," he told her, his tone warm even as his eyes stayed cold.

She didn't want to know this. As much as she knew it was all inside her mind, Jane didn't have enough good memories to share the space with horrible things she'd imagined. Having Kurt interrogate her would buckle her sanity at the weakest points. 

"I don't know, I'd tell you," she promised. "I just don't remember!"

"We'll start here," Kurt said. He picked up the knife, turning it to dazzle light in her direction. He tested the edge against the pad of his thumb. His other hand curled around the apple, and he cut it in half. 

The panic refused to let her go. Jane tried to stand, only then feeling the cool of shackles on her ankles. She was wearing yoga pants and a tank top, as if she'd been walking to the gym and been locked up instead. 

He laid the knife to one side, and held out part of the apple across the table. His face morphed oddly from the stoicism to a smile. "Jane, this is yours."

Her hand shook, lifting from the death grip on the table's edge. She opened her palm and he made a noise of pleased agreement. His eyebrow arched as he took a bite of his own half.

Jane didn't mean to move. Her body mimicked him. She chewed without tasting and swallowed with a gulp. Kurt was looking through the objects. His reaction to all of them was equally flat.

He picked up the coin, polishing it between his fingers. "I don't think this matters," he said, laying it aside with the knife and the discarded apple. 

The marble was tiny in his hand. Kurt brought it up to look through it at her eye level. He stood up and came around the table deliberately. 

Her muscles tensed but wouldn't do anything. Jane could tilt her face up to look at him, but couldn't flee. She sucked in a breath as he slipped his hand under the strap on her left shoulder. The marble rolled in graceful curls over her oldest tattoo, the only one she'd chosen before her memories were gone. She held her breath as he rolled it down her arm, ending with a nudge to her own hand. 

His hand took both of hers, laying them flat along her thighs. Jane let him take the apple away, and looked down as he put the marble in the center of her palm. 

"You have things to hold on to, Jane."

Stupid tears caught her off-guard, welling and falling before she could look away. He didn't flinch, reaching back and using the white fabric to dry them. 

Jane sighed, unable to decide if she should be fighting to wake. She wasn't afraid of Kurt. The situation was odd but he was there. She sat up straight, giving a quick smile to show she was okay. 

"I'm fine," she said. "But I don't know why I'm here."

The white fabric fluttered to the floor, ignored as Kurt turned away. He picked up the gun she now recognized by the slight wear from his faithful practice at the range. His gun was checked with the efficiency of decades, and tucked into his holster. 

"You're here to be with me," he said, turning back. 

He was equally efficient snapping the cuffs on her wrists. Jane was too slow to move, her fists doing nothing for her except holding on to the marble. She tried to control her breathing. The spike of panic was just brain chemicals. She could leave by waking up, but it wasn't that easy to leave Kurt Weller, FBI. She wore his name like a return to sender stamp. Anywhere she went, the association would be obvious soon enough. 

"Why are you doing this to me?"

Her voice came out pinched, and she was crying again. Kurt bent low, notching his body in the space between her knees. The neat turns of a key freed her ankles. He ducked and pulled her arms down over his head. He put a hand on the chair next to her hip, steadying himself. As he stood up, he pulled Jane along. She was still unwilling to fight him outright, to hurt him while he wasn't really hurting her. 

"Kurt . . . " She stumbled coming off the chair, kicking it over. He settled her against his chest and ran a hand over her trembling arm to the cuffs strung behind his neck. 

"I don't need to know everything," he told her softly. "I just need to know you're nearby so I can protect you. So you need to let me keep you safe."

Her shock was increasing, every odd moment making her more unsure if it was a nightmare. She had feelings for him, but Kurt was an FBI agent. She was a literal unknown in so many ways his boss sometimes treated her like a threat. She couldn't tell him anything about herself that couples should be able to share. 

"This isn't-"

He cut her off with a kiss, deep and intimate beyond the stretch of having to hang on his shoulders. She felt her feet lift as he picked her up and turned toward the table. Jane tried to keep the cuff chain off his skin as he lowered her down and her eyes closed at the sensation. 

When she opened them, she was alone in the safehouse bed, her feet braced on the mattress. Her upper body was melting with relaxation, even as her legs told her she needed to run. She forced her lungs to fill, and it felt like her first breath in ages. She held her wrists up, wondering at the way they had pinned themselves together, and let her arms fall to her sides. 

She still wasn't sure if she could call it a nightmare.


End file.
